Guide of Stromboli, Italy

Stromboli, Italy

This is the island where the volcano is always awake. Stromboli in fact boasts the only volcano in Europe in constant activity. These giant black forms rise, imposing, above the intense blue of the sea. The summit is 926 meters high, but also considering the submerged portion, this volcano is more than 2000 meters high.

Approaching the island as darkness falls, the flame of the volcano illuminates the summit of the cone at regular intervals of 15/20 minutes. The people here have lived with shocks and eruptions for at least three thousand years. The lava drips are not dangerous for the inhabitants of the island because they slide down the Sciara del Fuoco, closed on the sides by two high rocky barriers.

The past of Stromboli is strongly linked to marine tradition. In the nineteenth century Stromboli had a fleet of 65 sailing boats that navigated in the Mediterranean. With the beginning of the steamboat, However, the island fleet entered a crisis. To this was added the disastrous eruption of 1930 and the resulting tidal wave, which convinced a majority of the populations to abandon the island. Of the 5,000 inhabitants of the beginning of the century, Stromboli today counts only 500.

In 1949 the director Roberto Rossellini filmed "Stromboli terra di Dio (Stromboli, Land of God)," interpreted by Ingrid Bergman, one of the masters of Italian Neorealism.

Beginning in the 1950's the island discovered its vocation tourism and services are not lacking. Only the streets continue to be un-illuminated, but the stars in Stromboli - one of the marvels of the island - are so luminous that artificial light is not necessary for walking.

Visiting Stromboli

The north-east slopes of Stromboli are covered by a luxuriant green blanket, where the typical white houses placed here and in the countryside, divided by long hedges of Indian figs to show the limits of the properties. In spring the dense olive trees and the vineyards, colored by rows of wisteria and of broom plants, offer an enchanting scenario.In this area are found the inhabited areas of Stromboli: Scari, San Vincenzo, Ficogrande and Piscità.

San Vincenzo is the heart of tourism in Stromboli, an animated village in the summer months, with its little streets, shops, boutique, and the great 18th-century church of San Vincenzo. The houses still reflect the old Eolian style: small and in the form of a cube, are built in a special way to resist the frequent earthquakes. Outside of the casa there is the terrazzo with the typical column to support the vine arbors.